5 ms·

I understand the frustration, but NBC is just trying to optimize for primetime viewers so they can extract maximum advertising dollars. They paid over $1 billio

I understand the frustration, but NBC is just trying to optimize for primetime viewers so they can extract maximum advertising dollars. They paid over $1 billion dollars for the right to broadcast the Olympics and now they must recoup that investment.

pavel_lishin 14y ago
I want to say that they just found a local optimum, and that they're sacrificing long-term viewership for a short-term profit. But who am I kidding? Nobody's going to stop watching NBC permanently because they won't air the olympics in a timely manner.
- mattbirchler 14y ago
  Exactly. People are not going to stop watching NBC because of this. It's really not a big deal to most people. Most people want to be able to come home from work and watch the biggest events of the day.
  - _delirium 14y ago
    I agree as far as the delay goes, but I think they're handling the spoilers badly. A lot of people are annoyed that they went to http://www.nbcolympics.com/ http://www.nbcolympics.com/ to find a broadcast schedule, or watched the NBC News before the Olympic broadcast, and were told the results of stuff that hadn't aired yet. An option could be to double down on the tape delay, and uniformly embargo results until the airing: pretend that when something airs on NBC is when it really happens, at least for NBC-property purposes.
    - deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
InclinedPlane 14y ago
That model no longer works in the modern age. Simply put, there is demand for viewing coverage of the olympics that is not being met, thus they are leaving money on the table. Unfortunately for them and for their potential customers they are constraining themselves to a business model that is obsolete. They are doing the equivalent of covering the olympics via newspaper in a television era. They need to provide live streaming coverage of a wide variety of events, whether for free (with ads) or for a fee. That's the minimum bar these days, if they can't meet that bar people will just get their olympics coverage some other way (such as pirated bbc coverage) and NBC will still have lost out on a massive amount of potential revenue. And in the meantime they will have tarnished their brand as well.
- notJim 14y ago
  I don't think it's as clear cut as all the armchair CEOs on the internet say. By making this stuff available online, the amount of money they can get for the primetime TV spots is reduced, because fewer people will watch the primetime stuff, and it has less cachet because it's no longer exclusive. They will recoup some of that loss by charging money for internet access and having ads on the internet stream, but the ads online will be even cheaper, because that's just how internet ads work. Not only that, but they have to have a platform that they can use to deliver and charge for this content at scale (they might already have such a platform, but it may not be up to this kind of scale, I'm honestly not sure.) So that costs money, too. It's likely the folks at NBC did this analysis and found that it didn't work out in their favor, or there was too much uncertainty. Meanwhile, most people will be at worst annoyed by the lack of internet coverage, but they'll just record it on their DVRs, or miss out on an event here or there. A very small number of people will go the trouble of pirating it, but those people are likely a margin of error in the grand scheme of things.
- fiesycal 14y ago
  How can you say the model no longer works? The model just doesn't fit your view. There's no requirement to provide live streaming online. In any case they do have online streaming if you have a cable subscription, I've heard it could be a better service but it's there. The only people complaining about this are tech savvy, and if they were to get free viewing online with just some ads how many of those people would use some form of ad-block? How is that profitable for NBC? People act like they are entitled to view the Olympics for free when they're not. Even the British don't get to watch online for free as they all pay taxes to BBC.
wtn 14y ago
I could see this argument for a Tuesday, but who the Hell wants to watch TV on a Saturday night—especially when the events happened 5 hours (± whatever) earlier?
- AznHisoka 14y ago
  I do.. not everyone goes out to get drunk or party on a Saturday night. Watching the Olympics was actually something I was looking forward to yesterday.

pavel_lishin 14y ago

I want to say that they just found a local optimum, and that they're sacrificing long-term viewership for a short-term profit. But who am I kidding? Nobody's going to stop watching NBC permanently because they won't air the olympics in a timely manner.

mattbirchler 14y ago
Exactly. People are not going to stop watching NBC because of this. It's really not a big deal to most people. Most people want to be able to come home from work and watch the biggest events of the day.
- _delirium 14y ago
  I agree as far as the delay goes, but I think they're handling the spoilers badly. A lot of people are annoyed that they went to http://www.nbcolympics.com/ http://www.nbcolympics.com/ to find a broadcast schedule, or watched the NBC News before the Olympic broadcast, and were told the results of stuff that hadn't aired yet. An option could be to double down on the tape delay, and uniformly embargo results until the airing: pretend that when something airs on NBC is when it really happens, at least for NBC-property purposes.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]

InclinedPlane 14y ago

That model no longer works in the modern age. Simply put, there is demand for viewing coverage of the olympics that is not being met, thus they are leaving money on the table. Unfortunately for them and for their potential customers they are constraining themselves to a business model that is obsolete. They are doing the equivalent of covering the olympics via newspaper in a television era. They need to provide live streaming coverage of a wide variety of events, whether for free (with ads) or for a fee. That's the minimum bar these days, if they can't meet that bar people will just get their olympics coverage some other way (such as pirated bbc coverage) and NBC will still have lost out on a massive amount of potential revenue. And in the meantime they will have tarnished their brand as well.

notJim 14y ago
I don't think it's as clear cut as all the armchair CEOs on the internet say. By making this stuff available online, the amount of money they can get for the primetime TV spots is reduced, because fewer people will watch the primetime stuff, and it has less cachet because it's no longer exclusive. They will recoup some of that loss by charging money for internet access and having ads on the internet stream, but the ads online will be even cheaper, because that's just how internet ads work. Not only that, but they have to have a platform that they can use to deliver and charge for this content at scale (they might already have such a platform, but it may not be up to this kind of scale, I'm honestly not sure.) So that costs money, too. It's likely the folks at NBC did this analysis and found that it didn't work out in their favor, or there was too much uncertainty. Meanwhile, most people will be at worst annoyed by the lack of internet coverage, but they'll just record it on their DVRs, or miss out on an event here or there. A very small number of people will go the trouble of pirating it, but those people are likely a margin of error in the grand scheme of things.
fiesycal 14y ago
How can you say the model no longer works? The model just doesn't fit your view. There's no requirement to provide live streaming online. In any case they do have online streaming if you have a cable subscription, I've heard it could be a better service but it's there. The only people complaining about this are tech savvy, and if they were to get free viewing online with just some ads how many of those people would use some form of ad-block? How is that profitable for NBC? People act like they are entitled to view the Olympics for free when they're not. Even the British don't get to watch online for free as they all pay taxes to BBC.

wtn 14y ago

I could see this argument for a Tuesday, but who the Hell wants to watch TV on a Saturday night—especially when the events happened 5 hours (± whatever) earlier?

AznHisoka 14y ago
I do.. not everyone goes out to get drunk or party on a Saturday night. Watching the Olympics was actually something I was looking forward to yesterday.